Google's 'accident' !

Google sets out to photograph all the streets it can for its Street View option, then 'accidentally' collects data from thousands of open wi-fi connections which were accessed using an antenna, and the data stored on huge hard drives. Admittedly, the HD's were required for storing the digital images, but why the antenna? If they didn't plan to access the data and store it, why equip the cars with the capability?

And why keep the data if it was recorded accidentally? Wouldn't it have been easier to simply erase it?

This is classic...

It (Google) has previously blamed an engineer who inserted a rogue computer code in the Street View cars' software.

It's easy to criticise householders for having no encryption, but to go out equipped to eavesdrop and steal personal data is rather more than 'accidental' and amazing that nobody noticed that there was a huge amount of data filling up the drives, and that it continued for months and months, in lots of different countries!!

Time to deal with these people hard. A fine of up to £500,000 is about the same as their coffee budget - hardly noticeable. How about £500 million?